I'm the founding partner of Proteus International, and author of Growing Great Employees, Being Strategic, and Leading So People Will Follow. You can follow me on Twitter @erikaandersen. My websites are erikaandersen.com, and www.proteus-international.com. I'm insatiably curious. I love figuring out how people, situations and objects work, and how they could work better: faster, smarter, deeper, with greater satisfaction, more affection, and a higher fun quotient.

10 Traits of Super-Achievers - Boiled Down to 2

Most of us are fascinated by people who do really well in life; those who break records, become world famous, are the very best at what they do, invent whole new ways of operating. What, we wonder, are their secrets? How are they different from us?

Goudreau explains 10 qualities that the authors found were consistent among the super-achievers they interviewed for the book. And they all resonated for me: dedication to a vision; intelligent persistence; fostering a community; good storytelling; remaining open; testing ideas in the market; managing emotions; constantly evolving; practicing patience; pursuing happiness.

I love all of these, and – unlike most “lists of 10″ – I see each as uniquely powerful and important. However (this is just how my brain works), I also noticed two qualities that run as threads through all ten, and seem to capture a lot of what Sweeney and Gosfield discovered:

This is a rare combination, and one that I’ve seen in great leaders; it’s how we define true passion. Many people have one or the other of these characteristics, but when you have both, it’s a daily driver of success. For instance, we all know people who are deeply committed. They believe strongly in something, and stay true to their ideas and principles despite adversity or others’ disagreement. (Super-achievers’ deep commitment shows up in their dedication to a vision, practicing patience, and pursuing happiness.) But without the leavening of permeability, deep commitment can easily drift into zealotry. Permeability brings commitment to life; keeps it from hardening into something rigid and unyielding. In the super-achiever traits, permeability shows up in fostering a community, remaining open, testing ideas in the market, and constantly evolving – all four of those traits involve getting curious about what others think about your commitment, and modifying your commitment in response.

And finally, three of the traits live squarely at the intersection of commitment and permeability. Intelligent persistence means staying committed to a direction but being willing to tweak when experience shows you that a particular approach isn’t working. Managing your emotions means feeling strongly about those things that are important to you AND being aware of others’ reactions to your emotions and modifying your expression of those emotions when they don’t serve you . And good storytelling requires that you have a clear and strong-held vision of the possibilities (commitment) and that you can recognize what’s important to others (permeability) in order to express your vision in a way that’s compelling to them.

If these two characteristics – commitment and permeability – are so critical to our success, how can we develop them? Here are a couple of simple, practical steps you can take:

Practicing commitment. Think about something to which you feel deeply committed, out of an authentic belief in its importance. It could be personal – your marriage, being a good parent – or it could be professional – helping the people on your team grow and succeed, making sure a valuable product or service gets to market. Now, answer the following questions. There are no right answers – the purpose is to help you become more aware of how you “practice” your commitments day-to-day:

How much attention do you put toward fulfilling this commitment?

If someone asked why this endeavor is so important to you, how would you respond?

What do you do to let others know how important this is to you?

What feelings do you have when you think about this endeavor?

What are you willing to sacrifice to make sure this endeavor succeeds?

Becoming permeable:

Being especially careful to listen deeply in those areas where you feel most committed is a simple and effective way to find that sweet spot of commitment + permeability. One specific thing to do, in order to take advantage of the power of listening: whenever you share a strongly-held beliefs with someone, pause and specifically invite their response. Ask, “What do you think about this?” or say, “I’d love to hear your point of view on this, too.”

And then, when they respond – and especially if they disagree – get curious and really listen: pay attention, invite them to say more, ask curiosity-based questions, summarize to make sure you understand. And if you hear something that truly informs or changes your point of view, let yourself fully take it in and evolve in response.

Here’s to you becoming a super-achiever, too – deeply committed and deeply permeable in the areas that are most important to you.

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One of the best articles I have read in a long time here on Forbes. The headline got me hooked, the opening paragraph engaged me instantly and the breakdown made sense. I am now in the process of decontructing your writing style in order to improve my own. Thank you for taking the time to write this article.

Excellent article. These two traits are so important for people who are committed to innovation within their companies and businesses. Without permeability, it’s tempting to bypass excellent ideas from others that can lend themselves to improving processes/products/companies/etc. Without commitment, what exactly would people be working for? Simply working for a paycheck doesn’t cut it with a lot of innovators these days.